what the hell have I been reading?
What I read the last two weeks.
I feel like I’ve been reading more slowly than usual the past month or so. It’s partly the time of year (busy) and partly that I’ve been starting multiple books at once, something I rarely do. I’m in the middle of Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez (fantastic but too big to travel with for the holidays), The Weird and the Eerie by Mark Fischer (nonfiction, which I typically take my time with), and The Andy Warhol Diaries (absolutely humongous).
But when I looked back at what I’d finished since the last newsletter, I realized I’d actually read quite a lot. Here are the books and articles that are sticking in my mind:
What I read this week (and last)
The Books
I completed my third full read-through of Slouching Towards Bethlehem. For me, it just gets better every time. Loving Joan Didion is somewhat of a young woman cliche, but I appreciate her more as I get older.
Next I wanted a change of pace in the form of a fun mystery about a teen girl’s disappearance, told in oral history format meant to mimic the interviews from a true crime docuseries.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when a book or film is described as “Lynchian” (as in, evoking the work of David Lynch) and is simply not weird enough. Or is weird in a sort of random, slapdash way. The Natashas by Yelena Moskovich is the rare work that lives up to this claim. Its bizarre, heady, atmospheric, surreal, and at times confusing—but in a way that completely held together for me as a reader. I’m going to be thinking about this book for awhile.
The Articles
A deep-dive into the creation of international chip flavors.
“The Weird and Wonderful World of Miniatures,” which reminded me how I saved up nearly $200 of allowance and birthday/Christmas cash as a child to buy an AG Mini—a miniature room put out by the American Girl that was basically just a diorama of a bedroom.
What I Did This Week
It’s all kind of a blur, as the end of the year tends to be. But I am coherent enough to remind you to pre-order my upcoming novel, YOUTHJUICE, a horror-satire that people (my publisher) are calling “American Psycho meets The Devil Wears Prada.”